Weather Forecast: Cold Snap Hits New England

Tuesday night: Mostly clear, cold. Lows in the single digits and teens. Wednesday: Mostly sunny, cold. Highs in the teens and 20s. Thursday: Very cold. Highs in the single digits and teens.

(Published Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017)

Bitter cold is on the way. Temperatures have already been dropping over the last couple of days. The significant plunge will happen Wednesday going into Thursday.

High temperatures only reach the teens on Thursday and Friday. We’ll see back to back months of below average temperatures.

If you look at the exclusive 10-day forecast, temperatures will remain below freezing for the next 10 days.

The first shot of cold air was accompanied by a burst of snow. It was a wild 90 minutes of blinding, heavy, windblown snow. Boston’s December snow total is now at 9 inches. To see a "top 10" snowiest December in Boston, we’d need an additional 8.7 inches at Logan Airport. Eight-point-eight inches would give us the 10th spot. It’s still possible, especially with the upcoming snow potential on Saturday.

The coastal storm, which is expected to develop, is still a long ways away. One piece of energy is still several hundred miles away from the Pacific Northwest, which means, we haven’t received a lot of data on it. Until that storm moves into Washington and Oregon, the forecast will remain changeable.

If we see a "bench mark" storm, it will be a BIG snow maker. A track south and east of the bench mark will put the heaviest snow over the Cape and Islands.

If the low moves northwest of the bench mark, the heaviest snows will fall over the Merrimack Valley and southern New Hampshire. Stay tuned!